The Mekong Delta and its islands are home to 70 percent of Vietnam’s mangroves and 90 percent of its seagrass beds. Fed by the sediment and nutrients from the Mekong River, these habitats support Vietnam’s richest fishing grounds. However, these habitats are under growing threat. Intensive near-shore fishing has depleted fish stocks leading to the phenomenon of “fishing down the food chain,” with ecologically devastating effects. The delta’s mangrove forests, which provide nursery habitat for sea bass, snapper, and other commercially important species, as well as crucial protection for coastal communities from storm surges, are declining, trapped between rising sea levels and sea dikes. Other climate change impacts such as prolonged droughts and higher ambient temperatures, made worse by the loss of mangroves and their micro-climate regulation, threaten shrimp stocks. Shrimp farmers instead are turning to pumped groundwater to maintain required marine temperatures, leading to land subsidence and faster mangrove loss.
Sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in collaboration with the Directorate of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), is implementing the MDC project with the goal of minimizing threats to marine biodiversity, fishery resources and enhancing resilience to climate change in the coastal areas of the Mekong Delta. The project will work with authorities, businesses, the NP Management Board and the fishing community to test financial opportunities and develop new policies. Of relevance to this position, the project will also work with authorities, businesses, and local communities to explore and test solutions to conserve and expand mangrove forests behind the sea dykes to increase fish nursery habitat and coastal biodiversity.
The project will be implemented in the most affected and vulnerable areas of Phu Quoc, Hai Tac archipelago, Ba Lua archipelago, Nam Du archipelago, Hon Dat (Kien Giang), Vinh Chau (Soc Trang).
This is a local recruitment. Only Vietnamese nationals, individuals with residence status or the appropriate employme
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